Creepy wedding trend: 'Let's get married at a former slave plantation'

As 12 Years A Slave presents a devastatingly shocking account of
history, Ava Vidal urges people to face up to a topic that has been
ignored for far too long – starting with the creepy trend of plantation
weddings

Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the most important days of your life. Whether or not you choose a big lavish wedding in front of friends, family and the neighbour’s dog or you want a more private secluded affair, it is the day that you declare to the person that you love that you want to be with them for the rest of your life. Statistically that probably won’t happen. But for one day you can fool yourself into believing that it will and then eat some cake. Even though some people may not care where they get married as long as they are with their beloved, there is one surprising place that is becoming a popular location for weddings and that isformer slave plantations.

Many want to shy away from the full horror of slavery. The British director of the film 12 Years A Slave (which opens nationally on Friday nighthas been described by some as the Schindlers List for slavery) has said that he deliberately did not do so. He believes that Hollywood has shied away from the topic for far too long pretty much ignoring it. So when he depicted the true story of oneSolomon Northup he did not hold back.

He wanted to show slavery in all its lack of glory. The scenes of black flesh being whipped mercilessly, of women being raped and brutalised, of black children being born and used for the sexual pleasure of their ‘masters’ were all there on the big screen for all to see. Some found the scenes so upsetting that they got up and walked out of the cinema. My black friend said that when she attended a screening of the film she found it interesting that the only people that walked out were white.

It seems that many people had theinitial reaction of Hattie Chamberlinbut unlike her, couldn’t see it through to the end and realise that it is a horrible reminder that this is what the human species is capable of.

Unsurprisingly when advertising weddings at these former plantation venues, the organisers are less keen as McQueen to spell out the vile history of them. Instead they tend to point to the beautiful décor without mentioning who was responsible for building it. There is generally no information about the black people that suffered there and they often use the euphemism ‘workers’ to describe them instead of the word ‘slave’.

“There is talk of slavery sometimes, only when guests bring it up. We don’t delve into that on principle in a wedding but if someone is interested, we are happy to talk about it in detail,” Mary Edmonds of Tuckahoe Plantation in Virginiatells Salon, who uses the word ‘principle’ somewhat loosely.

If you are trying to sell a house and someone has been murdered in it, the estate agent is obliged to tell potential vendors. This is because most normal, decent people would not feel entirely comfortable living in a place with that kind of history. But if it the site of the happiest day of your life has a vile history -no problem!

I am not suggesting that these couples (mainly heterosexual, Caucasian and ages between 23 and 35) are being deceived and don’t know the history of the buildings. Rather that they simply don’t appear to give a damn. What are the murders, rapes and forcible removals of children of black people when it happened in such pretty surroundings? It reminds me of when some people were trying to get justice from my old school when it was revealed the headmaster had been abusing pupils. One man wrote online: “Yes, but if only state schools had grounds like this!”

Remembering the past: Slaves at the Magnolia Plantation & Gardens in South Carolina

She succumbed to public pressure and issued a remarkably indifferent apologyon her website.

Some people simply do not respect these sites and the suffering that was endured by the people of African descent on them, because now, just like then, they don’t see these people as human. They weren’t afforded any respect then, and as couples slow dance together on their graves, they aren’t being shown any now.

I sadly don’t have to envision the kind of rage that some readers will be building up against my blog. I am so used to the reactions of people in the UK (which also played a significant role in the slave trade) when the ugly subject of slavery rears its ugly head. Many like to point out that no black people that are alive today were actually slaves, black people weren’t the only slaves, how talking about the subject makes you the real racist, how we should just forget about it ignoring the legacy it left behind and the fact that at the end of it slave owners and not slaves were compensated. You are told to not make a fuss about it and to let it go. And they will get their black friend that agrees with them to come and shout at you and tell you that it’s a shame that you allow yourself to be defined by something that happened such a long time ago.

The fact is that if slavery were not a big deal then some people wouldn’t be so uncomfortable around the subject. It wouldn’t cause so much resentment, bitterness and anger. And black people wouldn’t feel so strongly about it either.

12 Years A Slave should serve as an introduction to slavery and the inhumane behaviour carried out during that time. Anyone reading this should carry out their own research and find out more. I don't know whether this would ever stop the creepy trend of plantation weddings; as most of these people have clearly shown no empathy to start with. It may however, mean that weddings taking place at these venues are a little less well attended.